You people are morons to think the earth is only 6000 to 10000 years old. Just because you're too stupid to understand, or too lazy to find out the truth about, scientific FACT, doesn't make it untrue. Give me one iota of SCIENTIFIC truth concerning the existence of a god and maybe I'll revise my views, otherwise shut your mouths about knowing the truth—a concept that is obviously over your puny minds, as is abstract thought.

Hello,

I’m going to get right to the point. At Answers in Genesis, we have dealt with these same questions literally hundreds of times in many books, videos, magazine and website articles, emails, and conferences. You say we are unscientific, but we have documented over 190 scientists who have accepted the biblical account of creation and written extensively on the differences between operational science and historical science.

You say we are “"too stupid to understand, or too lazy to find out the truth about, scientific FACT,"” but for five years we have published the Answers Research Journal, a professional, peer-reviewed journal with quality scholarship and scientific research. You think us “"morons"” to believe the Bible’s historical record of the earth’s age, but have you carefully and rationally considered all the scientific arguments presented on our site?

You call for “"one iota of SCIENTIFIC truth concerning the existence of a god",” but if I point out the miracle of human conception and birth, would you admit that we are “"fearfully and wonderfully made"” (Psalm 139:14)? Probably not. Or look at your hand (or any other part of your body), which is a witness to the Creator’s brilliance, power, and love. The most sophisticated artificial hand made by the smartest scientists is not even worth comparing to the hands God made. But you probably won’t accept that scientific fact either, because you are rejecting the truth in unrighteousness, just as the apostle Paul said (Romans 1:18–20).

You also criticize us as having “"puny minds,"” but have you ever scientifically studied the Bible’s fulfilled prophecies or considered the impossibility of 40 or so different authors from three continents in three languages writing 66 individual books (that we now call the Bible) over a period of 1,600 years in perfect agreement and unison? The hate-filled, unscientific attitude of your email suggests that you have not carefully weighed any evidence.

Your problem is not intellectual or scientific, but rather moral and spiritual. You have a heart disease called sin. Blinded by the god of this world (i.e., Satan; see 2 Corinthians 4:4), you are “"willingly ignorant"” (2 Peter 3:5) of all truths concerning God. You see evidence only in light of an irrational atheistic worldview and try to explain away the inconsistencies and logical fallacies resulting from that worldview. If we present you with the miracle of the hearing ear, you would probably say, “Given enough time, it could have arisen by blind-chance evolution.” If we present you with the difficulties of radiometric dating, you would most likely reply that “young-earth creationists are unscientific.” Even if I could show you God, the answer would be something like, “It’s an alien.” Be serious: if God showed up on your doorstep tomorrow, would you get on your knees, repent of your sins against God, and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ as the Son of God who died on the Cross for your sins and rose from the dead? Every indication is that you would deny that truth also.

Some people will consider my statements to be unfair characterizations, but I am informed by the Bible, which is more authoritative on human nature than any pronouncements by scientists (although we are certainly not against science). And in the Bible, I read how the Israelites saw God do many amazing miracles, deliver them from Egypt with powerful judgments and plagues, miraculously provide water and food in the desert, and lead them with a cloud by day and fire by night—yet they still hardened their hearts over and over again in stubborn rebellion.

For the nation of Israel, it did not matter how many times God showed His power and glory or how many times God revealed Himself; they still rejected Him. You call for “"one iota of SCIENTIFIC truth concerning the existence of a god",” but Scripture states, “"If they hear not Moses and the prophets "[i.e., the Old Testament portion of the Word of God]“", neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead"” (Luke 16:31, KJV). With a heart in rebellion against God, the sinful human nature will continually discard any evidences for God, whether they are historical, miraculous, or scientific. History displays this.

From a heart of compassion that cares about your eternal destiny, I beg of you: don’t follow the historical precedent and tradition that blindly rejects Christ, but please carefully consider all of the materials already provided by Answers in Genesis. Most of all, get into the Bible and see the beauty of the person and Cross of Jesus—who took your pride, your lust, and, indeed, all of your sins in His own body as payment for the wrath of God against your disobedience. His shed blood cleanses us “"from all sin"” (1 John 1:7) and His Resurrection guarantees eternal life with Him. Trust the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior today. The very God you reject was rejected for you so that you could be reconciled to him (2 Corinthians 5:21).

I’m going to get right to the point. At Answers in Genesis, we have dealt with these same questions literally hundreds of times in many books, videos, magazine and website articles, emails, and conferences. You say we are unscientific, but we have documented over 190 scientists who have accepted the biblical account of creation and written extensively on the differences between operational science and historical science.

You say we are “"too stupid to understand, or too lazy to find out the truth about, scientific FACT,"” but for five years we have published the Answers Research Journal, a professional, peer-reviewed journal with quality scholarship and scientific research. You think us “"morons"” to believe the Bible’s historical record of the earth’s age, but have you carefully and rationally considered all the scientific arguments presented on our site?

I looked up the Answers Research Journal. It is indeed, self-published by AiG. A publication made by a group with an agenda. Yeah, I see no chance for bias here...

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You call for “"one iota of SCIENTIFIC truth concerning the existence of a god",” but if I point out the miracle of human conception and birth,

Why just "human" conception and birth? What about conception and birth of cats? Or dogs? Or ponies? Are they "miracles" too?

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would you admit that we are “"fearfully and wonderfully made"” (Psalm 139:14)? Probably not. Or look at your hand (or any other part of your body), which is a witness to the Creator’s brilliance, power, and love. The most sophisticated artificial hand made by the smartest scientists is not even worth comparing to the hands God made. But you probably won’t accept that scientific fact either, because you are rejecting the truth in unrighteousness, just as the apostle Paul said (Romans 1:18–20).

Our hands are nice and all, but nothing about them requires that we invoke magic.

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You also criticize us as having “"puny minds,"” but have you ever scientifically studied the Bible’s fulfilled prophecies or considered the impossibility of 40 or so different authors from three continents in three languages writing 66 individual books (that we now call the Bible) over a period of 1,600 years in perfect agreement and unison? The hate-filled, unscientific attitude of your email suggests that you have not carefully weighed any evidence.

Actually, it's very simple. All the they would have to do is to look at the old stories, and write their stories so that they fit. No magic required. Funny how that's something they never seem to consider.

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Your problem is not intellectual or scientific, but rather moral and spiritual. You have a heart disease called sin.

Sin is a heart disease? Is that something they published in the Answers Research Journal?

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Blinded by the god of this world (i.e., Satan; see 2 Corinthians 4:4), you are “"willingly ignorant"” (2 Peter 3:5) of all truths concerning God. You see evidence only in light of an irrational atheistic worldview and try to explain away the inconsistencies and logical fallacies resulting from that worldview.

*Insert picture of shinny mirror here*

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If we present you with the miracle of the hearing ear, you would probably say, “Given enough time, it could have arisen by blind-chance evolution.”

Ignoring the strawman; the ear did come about by evolution.

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If we present you with the difficulties of radiometric dating, you would most likely reply that “young-earth creationists are unscientific.”

Actually... pretty much, yeah. It'd be true too.

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Even if I could show you God, the answer would be something like, “It’s an alien.” Be serious: if God showed up on your doorstep tomorrow, would you get on your knees, repent of your sins against God, and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ as the Son of God who died on the Cross for your sins and rose from the dead? Every indication is that you would deny that truth also.

Why would I assume it's your particular god? Why couldn't it be Thor, or Zeus, or Haruhi Suzumiya?

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Some people will consider my statements to be unfair characterizations,

The technical term would be "strawman".

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but I am informed by the Bible, which is more authoritative on human nature than any pronouncements by scientists (although we are certainly not against science). And in the Bible, I read how the Israelites saw God do many amazing miracles, deliver them from Egypt with powerful judgments and plagues, miraculously provide water and food in the desert, and lead them with a cloud by day and fire by night—yet they still hardened their hearts over and over again in stubborn rebellion.

For the nation of Israel, it did not matter how many times God showed His power and glory or how many times God revealed Himself; they still rejected Him. You call for “"one iota of SCIENTIFIC truth concerning the existence of a god",” but Scripture states, “"If they hear not Moses and the prophets "[i.e., the Old Testament portion of the Word of God]“", neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead"” (Luke 16:31, KJV). With a heart in rebellion against God, the sinful human nature will continually discard any evidences for God, whether they are historical, miraculous, or scientific. History displays this.

From a heart of compassion that cares about your eternal destiny, I beg of you: don’t follow the historical precedent and tradition that blindly rejects Christ, but please carefully consider all of the materials already provided by Answers in Genesis. Most of all, get into the Bible and see the beauty of the person and Cross of Jesus—who took your pride, your lust, and, indeed, all of your sins in His own body as payment for the wrath of God against your disobedience. His shed blood cleanses us “"from all sin"” (1 John 1:7) and His Resurrection guarantees eternal life with Him. Trust the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior today. The very God you reject was rejected for you so that you could be reconciled to him (2 Corinthians 5:21).

Sincerely,Nathan Ham

A lot of preaching, bible quote spamming... I think somebody hit a nerve.

Why try to make a book resemble another one? Probably to make the new book sound more authoritative (for example, piggybacking Christianity on top of Judaism by using Jewish scripture as a starting point).

It's also possible that there was a lot of parallel development by various authors transcribing a shared oral tradition, and perhaps some after-the-fact editing to bring various stories more in line with one another. (Because there are still so many contradictions between different books of the Bible, though, I would expect such editing to be relatively uncommon.)

Another reason would be why reinvent the wheel when you can simply incorporate many years of theology into your own vision? If you had your own theological agenda or interpretation, but were in full agreement with the baseline concepts of Christianity and a number of ideas from other Christians it would make no sense at all to pretend to ignore tradition as though congruity were something to fear when it came to religious doctrine.

I was reading recently that when Copernicus and Bruno and a few others first proposed that the earth was moving around the sun, there were several reasons for their theory to be rejected. Christians had a hard time with it because, well, it wasn't mentioned in the bible so it couldn't be true. Then there was the problem of "firmament", which is how everyone looked at earth. It was unmoving. People saw stuff move around the earth (sun, moon, stars) but they had no way of experiencing that fact that the earth itself was moving. Hence the idea that our planet was orbiting around the sun felt ludicrous. Of course all of this was exacerbated by the low education level of the average person.

Keep in mind that you and I are traveling at a speed in excess of 170,000 miles an hour via our planets spin, our orbit around the sun, and our sun's orbit around the center of the Milky Way. Does that make it hard to walk down a sidewalk, or make it windy every single day? Nope. So it can be hard to explain to some that we're actually whizzing through space right now.

In any case, the argument saying that our planet was in orbit around the sun sounded ludicrous, because it didn't match experience of knowledge. There was no way for this new info to be rapidly assimilated. Bruno had to fry first.

For different reasons, Christians who insist that the earth is only 6-10,000 years old feel a strong need to hold on to those beliefs, regardless of the evidence. In fact, we humans are pretty good at using evidence against us as evidence for us, and some of us seem able to redefine the meaning of any given piece of evidence and use that as absolute proof that they are right. Just like conspiracy nuts, who, when confronted with contrary information, they redefine it as proof that their conspiracy theories are true, otherwise that information wouldn't have to exist. Something like that.

People with a vested interest in a tiny story seem seldom to be able to look at the big picture. They seem unable to comprehend information on the scale that is available when it comes to theories about the formation of the universe or evolution or even more recent problems like global climate change. None of that information fits into their reality, so of course it has to be false.

And we need to be a bit careful when we toss all Christians into the same basket. Catholics, on the whole (as per their Pope), accept evolution. They just give their god a bit more credit that we atheists do. So not all believers insist on silly timelines.

That said, the AIG folks are morons. Hence 190 scientists can seem like a fairly big number, especially when a guy can only count to 6,000. And i wouldn't even care about that if they didn't have brethren busy legislating their way into our bedrooms and bodies even as they insist that we leave them alone.

Yea, they are morons. Anyone who thinks "peer review" means that people peered at it during their coffee break or something (which is the only way anything they publish could get "reviewed"), deserves that title.

For anyone with 25 minutes to spare, our pastor recently addressed the issue of science and Christianity. It doesn't get into the nitty gritty of the science itself, but an interesting talk all the same. If you're interested, the link to is bottom left of my account info (www/globe icon)

Jeff, no science degree that I'm aware of. He was a social worker prior to doing theological studies. As I said, he doesn't seek to debate the ins and outs of specific sientific belief, although the human geonome project is discussed. It looks at the idea of whether scientific thinking/processes and Christianity are mutually exclusive and looks at some early scientists of note and influence who "held a bible in one hand and a magnifying glass in the other".

You should know after 10 minutes if you should bother yourself with it all.

Your pastor did his research, and he did manage to find one contemporary high profile scientist[1] who believes in Christianity. I kind of scratch my head at this Frances Collins guy. BTW - he is most certainly NOT a young earth creationist type. In fact, he even rejects intelligent design, and has coined his own theory to reconcile science with his god. He is most certainly an anomaly. And a controversial character within the scientific community.

But your pastor really had to stretch to find more credible faithful scientists. Frances Bacon? Ok. But that was a long long long time ago.

To your pastor's credit, he did not cite the "global warming does not exist" scientists, many of whom are Christians waiting for the rapture, and who would understandably not be concerned about the long term welfare of planet earth.

@PP - I couldn't agree more. I think it weakens our arguments to lump all faithful together. Not all Christians are Westboro Baptists or young earth lunatics, just as not all Muslims are Taliban-style lunatics.

Christianity has always evolved, and it will need to continue to evolve if it is going to survive. As you pointed out, it took quite a few generations and a bit of bloodshed to get the Christian community to accept that the earth revolves around the sun. I suspect there are very few literate Christians alive today who would contest this fact. And I think most Christians today believe in some modified evolution-lite, in which god micromanages natural selection to entertain himself or perfect us or do whatever it is that god does. And I think an increasing number of believers can say that the big bang was how god started the universe. Generations from now, I suspect, our descendants will be a little baffled my these desperate attempts to reconcile science and faith in this era.

You say we are unscientific, but we have documented over 190 scientists who have accepted the biblical account of creation and written extensively on the differences between operational science and historical science.

It is amusing that they weren't able to find enough scientisits to bump that number up to a much more authoritative sounding 200.

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would you admit that we are “"fearfully and wonderfully made"” (Psalm 139:14)?

Xtians seem very fond of this particular passage (and it has been popping up more than usual here lately), but I've always found it odd. Why exactly is it such a good thing to be fearful? Being full of wonder and full of fear seem to be polar opposites to me.

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Or look at your hand (or any other part of your body), which is a witness to the Creator’s brilliance, power, and love.

OK, let's take a look at my appendix, shall we? Oops, sorry, we can't do that 'cause about a decade ago the little sucker got infected and caused me hours of excruciating pain before a doctor finally cut it out of me. Where was god's "brilliance" in designing an organ that serves no discernable purpose[1]?

but have you ever scientifically studied the Bible’s fulfilled prophecies or considered the impossibility of 40 or so different authors from three continents in three languages writing 66 individual books (that we now call the Bible) over a period of 1,600 years in perfect agreement and unison?

Perfect agreement and unison? Within the first three chapters of the very first book there are disagreements! There are, literally, hundreds of contradictions in the text of the Bible. Many are small but imply that there were different writers with different agendas, whose versions of an old oral tradition wound up being mashed together later on. Others are significant and direct contradictions which make some of the stories odd or confusing. Most of the time these incongruities are either waved off as unimportant, or rationalized, and the rationalizations can get quite intricate! That is usually the point where we are reminded that the book was "written by fallible men." But that is never mentioned in the same breath as 'the book is in perfect agreement and unison!'

Saint Augustine (A.D. 354-430) in his work The Literal Meaning of Genesis (De Genesi ad litteram libri duodecim) provided excellent advice for all Christians who are faced with the task of interpreting Scripture in the light of scientific knowledge. This translation is by J. H. Taylor in Ancient Christian Writers, Newman Press, 1982, volume 41.

Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he hold to as being certain from reason and experience.

Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men. If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods and on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason?

Reckless and incompetent expounders of Holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertion. [1 Timothy 1.7]

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Nobody says “There are many things that we thought were natural processes, but now know that a god did them.”

Over 190 scientists? Wow. I guess I should color myself convinced then. After all, scientists know what they are doing, and they certainly are way smarter than me. Certainly when a scientists thinks it, it must be scientific, must it not? That's the very core of the scientific method.

Wait ... 190 out of how many?[1]It was nice of the AiG to provide a QED of the accusation, though.

Over 190 scientists? Wow. I guess I should color myself convinced then. After all, scientists know what they are doing, and they certainly are way smarter than me. Certainly when a scientists thinks it, it must be scientific, must it not? That's the very core of the scientific method.

The sad bit is, they are saying "ignore all the scientific evidence there is out there - scientists don't know anything. But you should listen to OUR findings, because scientists agree with them!"

Why try to make a book resemble another one? Probably to make the new book sound more authoritative (for example, piggybacking Christianity on top of Judaism by using Jewish scripture as a starting point).

It's also possible that there was a lot of parallel development by various authors transcribing a shared oral tradition, and perhaps some after-the-fact editing to bring various stories more in line with one another. (Because there are still so many contradictions between different books of the Bible, though, I would expect such editing to be relatively uncommon.)

Great points, Astreja.

And another thing, MM, is that if a Mormon comes to you and uses your argument above in defense of the Book of Mormon, you can now use "Astreja's Easy Solution" to stomp on the Book of Mormon, just as Astreja stomped on the New Testament.

One of my favorite details is when the New Testament writers misread an Old Testament passage and then made their New Testament bullshit fulfill a "prophecy" that wasn't there to begin with.

OOPS, When I saw the title of this thread I thought it was referring to AIG Insurance Company -- the morons who's executives were tooling around on private jets while they were accepting g-d knows how much tax payers money in bailouts. My bad

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It doesn't make sense to let go of something you've had for so long. But it also doesn't make sense to hold on when there's actually nothing there.

Is it not grotesque when the representatives of an antiquated myth-sorcery, who believes in trinity, angles, devils, hell, virgin-birth, bodily ascension, making of water into wine, wine to blood, - when they want to impress us with their "science"?(Karlheinz Deschner)